AS NEW YORK Democrats cruise toward stunning November election victories, badly divided state Republicans are choosing up sides for the bitter post-ballot battle to come.

State GOP Chairman Stephen Minarik, the much-criticized Rochester resident who plans to leave office at the end of the year, is being urged to stay on as the party’s titular head – with Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno actually in control.

Allied with Bruno and Minarik is Nassau County GOP boss Joseph Mondello, whose once-powerful political machine has been in serious decline in recent years.

Insiders say Mondello would like to succeed Minarik next year.

On the other side are gubernatorial hopeful John Faso, whose nomination was opposed by Bruno and not helped by Mondello; Rockland County Executive Scott Vanderhoff; and Manhattan lawyer Ed Cox, former President Richard Nixon’s son-in-law.

Cox, who dropped out of the Senate race after Jeanine Pirro got in, is especially loathed as arrogant and conspiratorial by forces close to Minarik.

Some even suspect Cox of leaking damaging information about the federal investigation of Pirro late last month, although there’s no evidence that he did so.

“Sadly, the major battle we’re focusing on now is not against the Democrats – it’s against each other,” one GOP activist said.

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The “Love Boat” bugging scandal involving GOP attorney-general candidate Pirro is seen by political insiders as a death blow to Westchester state Sen. Nicholas Spano, the most endangered Republican senator in New York.

“This reminds all the Westchester voters, and especially the voters in Spano’s district, about all the sleaziness in local politics,” conceded a senior Republican strategist.

“This is awful news for Nicky Spano.”

With their candidates poised to sweep every statewide office, Democrats see the defeat of Spano, who won reelection two years ago by only 18 votes, as one of their top priorities.

The loss of Spano and Trunzo would give Senate Republicans a mere 33-29 lead over the Democrats. That would be close enough, insiders agree, for a newly elected Gov. Eliot Spitzer to win – or buy off with special favors – enough GOP support to control most Senate votes.